© Richard Skelton, 2014

Published by Richard Skelton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

The rights of Richard Skelton to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-9930020-2-1

Book layout and cover design by Clare Brayshaw

INTRODUCTION

This series of books is, in some respects, a love letter to motorcycling. It has certainly been written from the heart. I started riding powered two-wheelers in the mid 1970s, on a fabulous little 50cc ‘popsicle purple’ Yamaha FS1-E, and straight away I felt that riding set me free in a way that was not only instantly joyful, but also meaningful and somehow magically transcendental.

I was also aware I was stepping into a great, flowing river of history, and I was deeply glad of it. I quickly became as interested in motorcycling’s past as its present; hungry to find out about the fascinating machines and singular people that made motorcycling what it was, and had been. And I began to explore what it was that set motorcyclists apart from the majority and made biking so uniquely enjoyable. As an avid rider and reader, I became a student of ‘the sport’.

Those thoughts and feelings have endured for nearly 40 years now and while I still find motorcycling in all its aspects as boundlessly fascinating as did my teenage self, it is the period in which I plunged in and joined the flow, the time when I was at my most impressionable and when my mind was at its most absorbent, that still holds the greatest interest for me today. The 1970s. The time when I fell in love with motorcycling.

The first book is a general history, briefly told, of motorcycling in Britain from its beginnings at the very end of the 19th century up to 1969 (interwoven to an extent with two-wheeled goings on in the USA and elsewhere). It charts motorcycling’s pioneering years, skips through two world wars, tells of social acceptability in the 1920s, hard times in the 1930s and growing ostracisation and decline in the 1950s and 1960s. It attempts to make sense of the motorcycling world order, and of motorcycling’s place in society and everyday life, and sets the scene for the larger, more detailed volumes which follow.

Taken together, Books Two, Three and Four form a comprehensive, in-depth history of the bikes and motorcycling trends and events in the 1970s. They tell the story of the arrival of the superbike, the continuing and inexorable rise of the Japanese motorcycle industry and, partly from an insider’s point of view, the wasteful, lingering death of its British equivalent. They tell of the thrilling and extraordinary sporting machines from Italy and of the bulletproof BMW twins designed in Bavaria. They tell of motorcycling culture and of two-wheeled life and lives.

In the 1970s, motorcycling became a leisure activity in a new and exciting way, there were more motorcyclists than ever before, or since, and dozens of new and ever more fabulous and technologically advanced motorcycles crammed the showrooms every year. It was the time of Jarno Saarinen and Giacomo Agostini and of Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene. The time of Bike magazine, of Motorcycle Sport and Cycle in the USA, of Mark Williams, Dave Minton and LJK Setright in his pomp.

I argue that although the protagonists were largely unaware of it at the time, the 1970s as a whole can now be seen to have been a golden era in the history of the movement, a pivotal decade which represents a high point in the history of motorcycling that is never likely to be matched.

The final book in the series, entitled ‘The Magic of Motorcycling’, takes a sideways look at the 1970s classic motorcycle scene in the second decade of the 21st century and explores what it is that makes motorcycling so special to so many people yet an anathema to a great many more.

And a series of appendices list nostalgic, amusing and sometimes poignant reminders of the life and culture of the 1970s, reminding us of the global goings-on and domestic backdrop underlying the motorcycling scene and, of course, all lesser matters.

Books Two to Five all feature a short chapter containing potted biographies of the interviewees quoted in the text.

Altogether, this gigantic and far reaching but, I hope, always coherent tome, is an attempt to make sense of motorcycling and celebrate its apogee in the 1970s. I have tried to set down a great many facts in a logical yet entertaining way and, as well as aiming to be informative, I have strived to connect with fellow enthusiasts and devotees at an emotional level, and also to convey to non-motorcycling readers something of what is wonderful and fascinating about powered two-wheelers.

CHAPTER ONE

A FALSE DAWN

As the 1970s dawned, Britain was a country still overshadowed by the Second World War, and still paying for it. A country whose political elite included men such as Ted Heath and Tony Benn and Denis Healey who not only lived through it, but fought in it. A country in sad decline but still an important industrial powerhouse and a major world economy. A country where politics was still directly connected to the everyday. A country of nationalised industries, flying pickets (invented by Yorkshire miners’ leader Arthur Scargill in 1969), Keynsian governments and low unemployment. A country whose citizens stubbornly clung to the increasingly outdated notion it was still a significant world power.

By 1970 man had walked on the moon but in Britain most people still had flickering, grainy black and white television sets perched on spindly splay legs, and donkey jacketed workers still wore flat caps and mufflers and walked to the pit, factory or mill in early morning darkness carrying their steel snap tins and stopping off at the paper shop for a Daily Mirror and a pack of Senior Service.

Britain was a country of long, hot summers, milk at morning break, mini skirts, slam door trains, and Green Shield stamps. Of Burton Ale and Ind Coope bitter, of Spangles and Maltesers; a new world of Chopper bicycles, Subbuteo and Space Hoppers happily coexisting with an old one of blow football, Beetle Drives and Happy Families.

British motorcycles ruled the roads and white dog poo littered the streets (calcium from the bones and bone meal they ate). There was just one pop chart and three television channels. We listened to the same music and watched the same programmes. These things were cohesive. We really were all in it together. In 1970, Rolf Harris’s Two Little Boys was the January number one. The Stylophone brought electronic music to the people and everybody watched Top of the Pops. George Best was soccer’s only superstar and the FA Cup replay between Leeds and Chelsea at Old Trafford on April 29 would be viewed by 28.4 million people.

Central heating was a rarity in 1970, as were colour televisions. For now most people wore a warm pullover in the house and made do with a wall mounted two bar electric fire to heat the bathroom and a solid fuel open fire in the lounge, perhaps with a back boiler providing hot water. A copper storage cylinder containing an electric immersion heater was the most common apparatus for producing enough hot water for a bath.

There were three colour television channels at the beginning of the new decade, BBC1 and ITV having begun colour transmissions in November 1969, two years after pioneering efforts on BBC2, but only 200,000 colour televisions were in service in 1970. By 1972 there would be 1.6 million despite a high monthly rental cost of around £8 per month.

Returning home on a dark January evening to a cold, empty house, a frozen motorcyclist would typically be obliged to wait an hour and a half before the immersion heater could supply sufficient hot water for him to have a restorative bath (although Germaine Greer’s ‘Female Eunuch’ was published in October 1970, it is reasonable to assume our motorcyclist is a man). A television advertisement for water soluble salts urged us to ‘Relax in a Radox bath’ (Radox started life in 1908 as foot salts product that apparently RADiated OXygen) but in winter there would be leaf-like frost patterns on the inside of the bathroom window and a steaming steel tub cooled to room temperature in ten minutes, so a bracing dip was more often in order than a soothing soak.

Then, having earlier laid and lighted a coal fire, a skill in itself, he could sit, perhaps with an eiderdown over his knees as protection against curtain billowing draughts from the window and further cold blasts from under the door, and enjoy the close, flickering warmth of the fire and a boil in the bag Vesta beef curry (even he couldn’t get that wrong), while watching two or three hours of fuzzy, monochromatic audio-visual entertainment. The national anthem or screeching test tones would then drive him out of his chair to fill a hot water bottle and retire to an early bed.

In the early 1970s motorcycling was never shown on television, apart from scrambling, or motocross as it was becoming known, which was occasionally still broadcast on weekend afternoons. Even then, its slots could not be guaranteed; scrambling was always at the mercy of schedulers, who would drop events if horse racing overran or keep them back to use as fillers when horse race meetings were cancelled. In 1970, televised sport meant football, golf, and in the afternoons, wall to wall horse racing.

Grand Prix motorcycle road racing was at a low ebb at the start of the 1970s. Mike Hailwood had officially announced his retirement, aged just 29, and amazingly, the flat blat of archaic open megaphone British four-stroke singles was still to be heard in 500cc Grands Prix. They were competitive too, up to a point. Agostini would usually play at making a race of it for the crowds, then clear off to win on his MV Agusta, but there was often a British banger in a podium position and British privateer Godfrey Nash won the 1969 Yugoslavian Grand Prix at Opatija on a Manx Norton (it would be the last 500cc victory for a single cylinder machine).

It was a strange state of affairs brought about by Honda’s withdrawal from racing at the end of 1967. There was just nothing else available to take the fight to the MV Agusta factory in the sport’s biggest class. Manx Nortons and Matchlesses were bikes of 1920s origin, motorcycles from a past epoch, but they were reasonably fast and immensely stable, both while cornering and in a straight line, ignoring bumps and grooves and going where they were pointed. They were also practical and easy to maintain and repair.

They were fine racing motorcycles but the jackhammer beat of British singles ‘on the pipe’ would soon become consigned to the past and jargon such as ‘full chat’ and ‘on the mega’ was about to become an ancient argot. A language of the past.

In the smaller classes the technological battle of the 1960s was over. Ernst Degner’s defection from MZ had led to a mad race between all the big four Japanese manufacturers. Suzuki, Yamaha and, belatedly, Kawasaki built two-stroke racers with ever tinier pistons and ever more cylinders arranged in a variety of interesting configurations. These clever creations produced ever more power but in ever narrower bands and to keep them singing the riders had to play a tune using gearboxes with as many as 14 gears.

To keep up Honda produced exotic multi-cylindered four-strokes with minute, watch-like internals, one of which revved to an incredible 25,000 rpm, and for which bespoke gearboxes of up to 10 speeds were sometimes made overnight and flown halfway round the world for instant use.

The beginning of the 1970s was a quieter time. New regulations phased in between 1969 and 1971 limited 50cc Grand Prix bikes to one cylinder, 125s and 250s to two and 350 and 500s to four. And bikes in all categories were restricted to six gears. These changes killed the four-stroke in the smaller classes and Honda withdrew from racing in advance of their implementation. Yamaha scaled down its efforts, focusing a little more on making its racers easier to ride and a little less seizure prone, and on its long-term ambitions in the premier class.

In 1970 coloured leathers were no longer considered effeminate. In 1969 world 250cc runner up Kent Andersson wore white hide with red side stripes to match his red and white Yamaha and his helmet was also colour coordinated. But black leathers and pudding basin crash helmets were still standard wear and even some of the top boys would sometimes wear a cardie over their cardboardy black suits. In the 1950s it had still been possible to ride a bike from meeting to meeting in Europe and compete on it. By the 1970s one or two production racers were still doing this, although not in Grands Prix. The world had moved on. The modern way was to drive from race to race in a Comma van towing a touring caravan.

Was the weather better in the 1970s? It certainly rained a lot at the beginning of the decade. Magazine road test photography tended to be naturalistic. Bikes were snapped by bedraggled, Barbour suited testers parked in streaming gutters outside their modest suburban homes, or pictured by the staff photographer, picking their way through city centre puddles, lashed by spray from splashing trucks and buses, and always, it seemed, under flat despondent skies. The pictures were in black and white, but it was clear they accurately reproduced a grim, grey world. What summer? That was the lament then as much as now.

Road congestion? While angry traffic gusted and blustered in town and cities, the roads outside these rumbling centres were often relatively empty. On the edge of conurbations, new age flyovers soared over suburbia and new underpasses dived under it, but the twanging ricochet of tyres over high level expansion joints, the phasey roar of exhausts in concrete cuttings and the woosh of trucks ramming air in and out of urban tunnels was cacophonous only in rush hour.

And on the half empty M1, flatulent Morris Minors infrequently pootled in the slow lane, Comma flatbed lorries grumbled by only sporadically, reps in boxy Ford Cortinas growled past but occasionally and the fast lane only very rarely swished with executives in Jaguar XJ6s and traffic patrolmen in new, shark-like Triumph 2000s. Many smaller roads were scarcely used. Some roads in Scotland and the rural north of England were deserted almost altogether.

In 1970 a few motorcycles were already being ridden for their own sake rather than as essential transport but then, much more so than now, motorcycling was a big part of everyday life for a significant number of riders. The idea that motorcycling would evolve into a self-indulgent hobby for executive types was still far from becoming a reality. In fact, as the country gradually became more affluent, more people were choosing four wheels and fewer were opting for two.

Motorcycling was in decline and under attack. In 1970 motorcycles made up just four percent of traffic yet contributed 20 percent of casualty statistics. ‘Is Motorcycling the Means to an End?’ was the droll title of a newly published effort by the Ministry of Transport’s Road Safety Publicity Unit which claimed motorcyclists were 21 times more likely to be killed than car drivers and 34 times more likely to be injured.

Compulsory passenger insurance for motorcyclists would become law in 1971, raising all premiums, and civil servants were known to be working on legislation to raise the minimum riding age to 17 (it would become law in December 1972, forcing 16-year-olds onto mopeds with unforeseen consequences). Motorcycle Sport magazine wrote of tedious legislation threatening ‘the game’, and a way of life. There was also still a resentment of the 70mph national speed limit introduced in 1964 and a lingering hope it would eventually be abolished.

For most motorcyclists, bikes were not just for fun; they were a serious means of transport and not a particularly cheap or easily affordable one. Hire Purchase (HP) was a solemn undertaking. A big deposit was required and repayments were a slog. Dedicated riders had to work their way up to a big bike. Motorcycling’s Barbour suited Old Guard, the core readership readership of Motorcycle Sport Magazine, rode British motorcycles, often kept a vintage machine as well as a contemporary one, and socialised together at weekly club meetings. This was a 1950s scene still just about alive in 1970, although in steady and terminal decline.

These veteran motorcyclists saw motorcycling as a sport requiring skill, finesse and further commitment beyond paying for the machine. Home servicing made for personal involvement, a relationship with the bike, deeper riding satisfaction and pleasure in ownership. It made sense to understand how the machine to which you trusted your life functioned. And it was cheaper that way too.

New riders, although increasingly not drawn to clubs and societies, nor moved to master maintenance beyond the most basic procedures, were aware there was a tradition to maintain and through carrying out simple tasks and learning about motorcycling history from paternal old hands and greybeard scribes in the specialist press, were generally glad to be part of its continuum.

At the start of the decade, Britain’s surviving motorcycle manufacturers bemoaned the falling home market. And although still benefiting from the rapidly growing American biking scene, they were having to work harder than ever before to maintain their success. No longer could they sell bikes in other world markets without even trying; without, in some countries, even having proper dealerships. British firms, it seemed, looked only to the USA when devising export strategy and ignoring the colossal global non-enthusiast market that was the bedrock of the Japanese firms’ financial success would prove a huge mistake.

At home too, the repeated failure of Britain’s industry to overhaul its products and meet the needs of a changing home market meant no real effort was made to compete with the Japanese in the sale of small capacity machines. The industry was failing to attract young British motorcyclists to British marques and was thereby leaving the road clear for future Japanese domination.

The superiority of the products of the British industry had been taken for granted by more than one generation but things had changed. The Old Guard had biked British for a lifetime and to the Triton mounted rocker, begoggled and pudding basined, in badge bedecked black leather jacket, black boots, Wrangler jeans, white sailor’s sweater, white silk scarf and turned over white woollen socks, a pressed steel buzz box was no good at all.

But Japanese motorcycles were practical, reliable, rider friendly machines offering more than decent performance and easy maintenance. They appealed particularly to novice riders and the commuter and consequently new motorcyclists usually bought small Japanese bikes. In this way the Japanese manufacturers began long-term relationships with young British bikers.

THE RISING SUN

Japanese bikes were better looking than before, and they were getting faster and more exciting. Before the Japanese moved into the market, small bikes were generally considered mundane, underpowered and uninspiring. In the 1960s the British made ride-to-work two-strokes which surged and coughed and belched their way from home to factory, and back again if their owners were lucky. They were cheaply made, carelessly assembled, unreliable, smelly, oily, non-cooperative and much cussed. They were painted horrible colours and given embarrassing names.

These hapless machines were being replaced by smooth, nippy and reliable two-strokes from Suzuki and Yamaha. Bikes built using engineering lessons learned on their all conquering Grand Prix bikes of the 1960s. Steadier ride to work motorcyclists bought 250cc overhead camshaft four-stroke Honda twins (no pushrods, even in 1970) and the Honda Cub killed off the last of the scooters.

In 1970 Gerald Davison was a young manager at Honda UK. In the early sixties he had trained as an insurance assessor and worked for a time at south London motorcycle dealers, Taylor Matterson.

Gerald Davison: The British industry had nothing to offer. Every attempt they made to compete fell short because the quality wasn’t there. I can remember before I joined Honda, when I was with Taylor Mattersons, I used to test quite a lot of the new models that came out. We had a new Francis Barnett Plover and I had to go somewhere on it late in the afternoon. It got dark and every time I stopped at traffic lights the lights almost went out so when I got back I told the chap who had done the PDI on it whenever it stopped it almost lost its lights and he said: ‘Ah! There’s a back up battery.’.

And sure enough there was a little compartment and in there was a domestic Ever Ready U2 battery, two cells with long brass strips on it and I thought what kind of technology is this for a motorbike? Just so primitive and cheap. I was shocked. And you’ve got to match that with what was coming in from Honda at the time, the 125s and the 250s and the 450.

And it wasn’t just the Japanese because prior to the Japanese most of the small bike market was dominated by Europeans, either Italian or German. The NSU Quickly was a very high quality lightweight and of course there had been scooters coming in from Italy and every attempt the British industry made at trying to compete with those just fell flat. The answer to the NSU Quickly was the Raleigh moped which was a bicycle concept with a really poor quality two-stroke engine on it. It was just rubbish, as was the Ariel Pixie. When the Triumph Tigress first came out I had a look at one at a show and thought it didn’t look too bad but actually, once again it was terrible. The quality just wasn’t there.

The early Japanese lightweights weren’t lookers to start with; a bit humpty tanked and lacking in style, but their never say die character was endearing and more British motorcyclists were getting used to the fact they could thrash their lightweight Japanese bikes without them coming to any harm. They gave hassle free, minimum maintenance motorcycling and they were great fun to ride.

Japanese bikes built a reputation for performance and reliability and furthermore the Japanese were always looking to improve. Each year their motorcycles were better engineered and incorporated new ideas. They became more refined and more technologically advanced. Snobs used to say two-strokes smelled of poor people. This was changing, although dimmer snobs failed to notice.

By 1970 contemporary magazine testers were finding it hard to fault Japanese lightweights such as the Suzuki A100. The bike was a little more modern looking than its predecessor, the 80cc K11P, but still had a typical 1960s Japanese look with a chrome sided tank and pressed steel frame. The A100, which had a sweet four speed gearbox and a tiny but flexible two-stroke engine lubricated by a separate oil feed, gave excellent performance.

According to Motorcycle Sport magazine the bike had a top speed of almost 70mph, could cruise all day at 60mph and would return 90 mpg ridden hard. Furthermore, it had a big bike feel and, despite it wallowing on its soft springs, cornering was an absolute joy. Lights and instrumentation were far beyond British small bike standards. Not many years earlier such performance and practicality had been unthinkable from such a small machine. It was, said MCS, ‘a super little bike’.

And the Japanese were winning hearts and minds despite bitter, deep seated prejudice which can be partially excused because of their unforgivably brutal behaviour in a recent and bloody war. So it went that the Japanese were obsessively orderly and comically polite, but underneath they were callous, ruthless, sadistic and devoid of compassion. Japanese factory workers were faceless automatons fed on a bowl of rice a day and drilled on an exercise yard. Japanese bikes were made from melted down washing machines. The Japanese were of an alien culture beyond Christendom. The Japanese were as predatory as wolves. The Japanese were barbarians to be held at bay.

In the early sixties Gerald Davison raced a 350cc Norton and a 250cc Greeves, and, while working at Taylor Matterson, he bought a Honda 125 Benly. His boss, Harold Taylor, had lost a leg and walked with crutches rather than wearing an artificial limb. In the 1948 International Six Days Trial in San Remo, Italy, the first time the event was held after the war, Taylor won a bronze medal in the sidecar class on a modified Vincent Black Shadow.

The heavyweight outfit carried permitted spares and tools in the sidecar held in place by fat rubber bands and a right-hand brake pedal was fitted together with brackets for Taylor’s crutches. Reportedly, when testing a standard outfit on a visit to the Vincent works at Stevenage, Taylor terrified Phil Irving by riding extremely quickly and accessing the rear brake by jumping up in the air and crossing his remaining leg over the machine. In the 1960s Taylor was a key figure in the motocross division of the Auto Cycle Union and acted as British team manager in many events such as the Motocross and Trophy de Nations.

Gerald Davison: I ran into a lot of flack buying a Honda when I was training. Taylor Matterson were Norton main agents and we also sold BSA and Triumph, Bond minicars and all sorts of things. Harold Taylor was good to me as a young lad, a sort of father figure I suppose, and I got on with him really well. He had a Daimler SP250 Dart which he used to let me drive when I was just 18 or 19. And while I was racing I could use the firm’s van which was fantastic because prior to that I’d had an old Norton 16H with a float on the side with two slots in it to put the wheels in. A bloody awful old combination as my race transport!

When I bought myself a Honda I took it into the workshop one evening to put the race kit on it and Harold Taylor came in looking very serious and said: ‘You will never, ever bring a Japanese product onto these premises again and you will never, ever carry it in the firm’s van.’

Because of the war that was quite a common attitude at the time but I was immune to it to some extent because I was very young. And I think I had a lot of empathy with the first generation of Japanese I came to work with, including Soichiro Honda himself. They had been completely impoverished by the war, many had grown up during it and immediately afterwards and at that time Japan was totally wrecked. They almost starved so I didn’t feel too guilty about helping them to get back on their feet. And they were very honest, industrious people with a very strong work ethic. I could relate to them.

But in the sixties there was still prejudice and enormous hostility here to anything Japanese and I understood that. Harold Taylor said: ‘Look boy, I always wanted a Mercedes car but now I know that I will never have one.’ And even in the 1970s when I was at Honda, every time they re-screened Bridge over the River Kwai at Easter our sales used to drop for a couple of weeks because it prodded everybody.

It was a deep prejudice and it took some overcoming. But the quality of the product overcame it. And Hondas were cheap because at that time the Yen was definitely undervalued. This suited the Americans who were playing the big game to help Japan build itself up, because America’s single greatest fear was that communism would get established in post-war Japan.

In the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire, in the industrial north of England, Sheffield bike dealer Wilf Green placed a notice in his shop window which read: ‘We do not sell Oriental oddities’! Green imported East German MZ motorcycles throughout the 1970s, ideal machines for those perversely desirous of a home repairable machine and one in regular need of such attention. As a dig at the Japanese, who made far superior bikes, it was somewhat misconceived.

In fact, Japanese prices were competitive not because their workers were exploited but because vast throughput allowed economies of scale, and Japanese machines were engineered to a good standard because of the use of very high quality tooling, much of it imported from the USA. Japanese motorcycles were truly mass produced, whereas British bikes were still a product of machine shop engineering practices.

But still they mocked: Japanese bikes were rice burners, tinny, soulless, limp-wristed, tarted up. They were flash things that would only last for a couple of years, their shininess just thin plating and their warning lights and flashing indicators merely gimmicks. They were Jap Crap. But while for macho Britbike die-hards the name calling went on, in the minds of more pragmatic bikers, including some enlightened members of the Old Guard, a conversion was taking place. And with each successive generation of new riders, there was decreasing antipathy towards the Japanese. Motorcycle journalist Dave Minton noticed the beginnings of an attitudinal shift.

Dave Minton: I can remember ‘rice burners’ was the sneering term that was going around before the Honda 750/4, when Japanese bikes were small. But British cafe racer society, or bypass society had already been shaken by Ducati singles and the small bikes from Japan which were blowing the pants off anything apart from the top sports 650s so they already had an insight into what was coming. And the ones that really set the cat among the pigeons were the CB72 and the CB77, the 250cc and 305cc twins which people were boring out, stretching to full 350s or whatever and those things were proved to be not only smooth but ultra-reliable as well and incredibly fast and that wiped the superior grin off the faces of a lot of British motorcyclists, although the Japanese still hadn’t quite got the looks together.

The Honda Cub and other commuter machines sold in thousands but the Japanese made bigger bikes too. Suzuki’s 250cc Super Six, the first production motorcycle with a six speed gearbox and subsequently a minor classic, first appeared in 1966 and was much admired by both enthusiasts and the press. The Super Six, which had a tubular frame, unlike the earlier Suzuki T10 which had a pressed steel backbone, was voted the first Motorcycle News Machine of the Year and retained the title in 1967.

A Motorcyclist Illustrated magazine full page advertisement for the Suzuki Super Six and T200 Invader in 1967 claimed a 100 mph top speed for the Super Six and 90 mph for the Invader. In fact, the Super Six had a maximum speed of 95 mph and calling it the first ton-up 250 was premature, but in the 1960s this was still 500cc performance from a 250cc twin cylinder two-stroke.

By 1970 the bike was called the Hustler and cost £335, and although it was not quite so ecstatically received as the original Super Six its performance and big bike looks made it popular with young riders. Suzuki’s sales brochure for the Hustler promised: ‘Smell of gas fume, thundering feeling of slicing into 100 mph air wall and a variety of manouvering ecstasies hitherto red taped within the prohibited circle of professional racers are now all yours with the Suzuki 250.’

According to Motorcycle Sport the Hustler was nicely finished with lots of nice touches, was easy to start, had light controls and could be docile and easy going. Its six speed gearbox fun to use, it bimbled happily when operated below its powerband but took off when in it, although the exhaust note remained inoffensive.

The tester admired practicality and attention to detail in the design, manifested not least in Suzuki’s Posi-force oiling system by which oil was distributed from a tank to the con rod, big ends and cylinder walls negating the need for the owner to add lubricating oil to the petrol in the 2.6 gallon tank. It was also noted that although offering the same performance as a British 500, the Hustler was much lighter and cheaper to insure and tax too.

In January 1970 Motorcycle Mechanics magazine tested a lime green Hustler which, because of its lurid paint colour and ‘abundance of chromium plating’, looked ‘...as though it has dropped straight off a Christmas tree’. Potential buyers will have been glad to read it was ‘not a sissy bike’. Mechanics’ headline shouted: ‘Over the ton from this Roadster 250!’ although this was not substantiated in the article. Tellingly in more ways than one, the concluding paragraph of the report stated: ‘We would say that the Hustler is a truly modern motorcycle...quiet, efficient, comfortable and a real flier. We wish we could build bikes like it at the price!’

A 500cc Suzuki two-stroke twin called the Cobra had been a surprise exhibit at the 1967 Earl’s Court Motorcycle Show. The name was dropped after a complaint from Ford, but the Titan, as it then briefly became, and subsequently the T500, was an important bike and something of an unsung hero in the Suzuki story.

The 1970 T500, which retailed at £342. 8s, was 8” longer than the Hustler, a little wider and two inches taller, and it was a surprisingly heavy bike, even heftier than a 500cc BMW. It had a braced tubular frame, and its bulky and heavily finned engine could power the machine to a maximum speed somewhere around 110 mph, but as with the Hustler, its high, wide US orientated handlebars made it too uncomfortable to hang on to for long at such high speed.

The T500, which was available in candy gold or candy orange, was praised for its smoothness and on test it returned an easy 68 mpg around town and 45 mpg ridden hard. The T500 had smaller carburettors than the earlier Cobra and the factory’s claimed 120mph top speed was apparently not realistic, but 110 mph was fairly easily achieved. The bike had Suzuki’s Posiforce lubrication system, a five speed gearbox with a positive neutral, a light and positive clutch, good brakes, and a comfortable seat for both rider and passenger.

The T500’s chunky exhausts were considered effective and gave a powerful note. The bike was considered a good open road burner and comfortable for long distance riding but there was concern about the lack of luggage carrying provision. Further negatives included tinges of rust appearing all too quickly and the Japanese Inoue tyres proving absolutely lethal in the wet. The bike’s suspension attracted no complaints.

But of the Japanese factories it was Kawasaki that led the two-stroke attack on the big four-stroke beasts of the motorcycling world. When it was released in late 1968 the firm’s 500cc Mach III triple sent shock waves across the USA. Over a quarter of a mile from a standing start the 500cc Kawasaki was faster than BSA and Triumph 650cc twins and also thumping great Harley-Davidsons.

The Kawasaki made similar power to the new British 750cc four-stroke triples and was much cheaper, but its vicious and spectacularly sudden on-off power characteristics made for treacherous handling due to the failings of its spindly front forks, undersprung rear suspension and inadequate tubular frame. Unless ridden very carefully, the bike got itself into all sorts of hideous shapes and the model earned itself the nickname, the flexi-flyer, and later, more blackly, the widow maker.

The Mach III’s short wheelbase and rear weight bias could be perceived in its dumpy appearance but that would be improved in later versions. The bike’s poor fuel consumption (20-25 mpg) was an issue in cash conscious Britain and the Mach III was less than entirely reliable, oiling its plugs if ridden slowly. But breakdowns were still accepted as part of motorcycling and a holder for a spare set of plugs was provided under the seat!

The first Mach III Kawasakis (aka H1) to arrive in Britain in 1969 had electronic ignition which played havoc with every television in the street. They were quickly recalled and fitted with points but annoying the neighbours was somehow entirely appropriate as early Kawasaki triples were raucous antisocial machines that tended to attract exhibitionists and show-offs. They delivered shattering acceleration and made a truly spine tingling sound; a harpie cry that made a man shiver and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Someone said an H1 is a bitch that sings.

Kawasaki’s 250cc Samurai and 350cc Avenger rotary valve two-stroke twins were fast, exciting motorcycles that sold well in the USA but poorly in Britain due to an inadequate distribution network.

Honda’s innovative CB450 Black Bomber had not been a sales success in Britain either and, having miscalculated demand, too many were imported by Honda UK in 1966 and a considerable number of unsold machines had to be sold off at a discount.

Gerald Davison: The 450 wasn’t the great success I think it should have been. It should have been a Tiger 100 beater but it wasn’t. It was beautifully designed, double overhead cam and, typical Honda, it had everything on it but it didn’t quite deliver what people wanted from a machine. It was a slightly odd capacity size as well and people had to come to terms with this because for years engine sizes had been rigidly fixed.

A 500 was a big bike, a 650 was usually a sidecar bike, a 1000 certainly was, and below 500 it went 350, 250, 125. All very neat, whereas the Japanese came along with some really odd engine capacities like the 305cc CB77, the Super Hawk, and later on, the CB550. What was that all about? Why not stick to 500? Well, the configurations the engineers came up with were good at those sizes so that’s what the bikes became and eventually, of course, the whole thing just became a complete free for all and manufacturers chose whatever capacity they felt like. We gradually got used to it.

The 450 was an attempt to make something that looked more European. It didn’t look as odd as the Benlys and the Dreams. In the early stages of Honda’s development, of course, Honda was not designing specifically for export markets. To start with a few people went to Japan and bought bikes from the company and after a few years the company then realised just how big the opportunity was and started to establish itself outside Japan and the really big step forward was American Honda.

The CB450 was restyled and it eventually became reasonably popular in the USA, continuing to be sold there in various forms until 1974. But even in 1968, when a CB450 was deemed the ten millionth Honda to be produced and was photographed being ridden off the assembly line by garlanded company founder Soichiro Honda, his firm was looking forward and in his mind the CB450 had already been consigned to history.

The engines in Yamaha’s two-stroke twins bore an obvious external resemblance to those in the factory’s successful racing bikes and indeed the engines also shared many internal components with the company’s air-cooled racers. This made the road bike engines fast, but also reliable and strong.

Yamaha’s small twin cylinder commuter bikes were speedy, flickable and fun to ride and the larger 250cc and 350cc models offered fantastic performance.

Introduced in 1969, the 350cc YR3 could trace its lineage straight back to the factory’s 1968 Daytona racing machines, which themselves were derived from road bikes. In the 1960s the Daytona 200 technical regulations were rigged in various ways to ensure side valve 750cc Harleys competed for glory with 500cc Triumphs. Then Yamaha America built 350cc racers using project frames and engines from the YR2 two-stroke road bike to try to spoil the party.

Despite having to blank off a cog in the YR2s’ gearboxes because only four speeds were allowed, so broad was the five ported two-stroke’s usable power band, the Yamahas nearly won, finishing third, fifth, seventh, eighth, eleventh and twelfth. Cal Rayborn won the event on a Harley-Davidson and repeated the feat in 1969, but it would not be many years before young Californian Don Emde and a Finn named Jarno Saarinen would ride 350cc Yamaha twins to victory at Daytona ahead of British and American 750cc factory bikes.

The Yamaha YR3 was more tractable than the YR2 (there had been a YR1 in 1967) but wheelie prone (although in 1970 Motorcycle Sport called them wheel stands!) and its acceleration was explosive. The engine, which was somewhat zingy despite having anti-ring rubbers between its cooling fins, made its real power between 5,000 and 7,000 rpm but it could also toodle happily below 4,000 rpm. Used between 4,000 and 5,000 rpm the bike proved an excellent tourer. The YR3 shared its looks with the YCS-2 180cc twin and, like most Japanese machines of its day, cannot be considered a stylistic success.

The Yamaha YDS-6 was a powerful new 250cc model with a low profile tank that was considered American in appearance. The YDS-6 had a rev counter, still considered a luxury on smaller machines, a separate speedometer and big, bright indicators. Incorporating ideas from race bikes, the YDS-6, which could trace its origins back to the 1965 YDS3, had more sophisticated engine porting than its predecessor, the YDS5 (there was no YDS4).

Like the YDS3 and YDS5 It had Yamaha’s Autolube oiling system, was easy and pleasant to ride and flicked from side to side with ease. Testers also praised its delightful five speed gearbox and powerful grab-free front drum brake. Fuel consumption was good and the bike had a top speed of 85mph, although with the tuning potential to greatly exceed that figure. Unlike the YDS5, the new 250cc Yamaha had no electric start but the left side kickstart was not awkward to use and the bike started easily and reliably.

Honda’s revvy, overhead camshaft CB250 and CB350 twins were a development of earlier 1960s models and performed adequately without being exciting. Solid, sensible and economical, they were nonetheless light years ahead of the archaic British models they initially competed against and both bikes sold well. The CB125, Honda’s five speed four-stroke overhead camshaft single was launched in 1970 and its price undercut BSA’s obsolescent Bantam. The little Honda was rightly regarded by journalists as an unexpected jewel of a motorcycle.